👋 Hello!

Welcome to the ninth edition of The Early Impact, the newsletter that provides you with news, updates and resources on how to build your career as an emerging professional.

It’s been another exciting month for me! I spoke in a webinar on “The Consulting Edge - Beyond Technical Skills”, went to Melbourne to celebrate the incredible achievements of some colleagues at work, ran in the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, and then also got a couple of other areas of life back on track, like continuing to run and getting out of my reading slump.

If you want to keep up to date with more of my professional work, feel free to follow my LinkedIn!

Now, let’s get into everything that happened in October content!

📰 News & Updates

The monthly roundup of emerging professional news and updates

• How white-collar employers are keeping staff happy: Companies are increasingly trying to keep staff happy and build more skilled teams by offering more opportunities to switch jobs internally (AFR).

• This year’s worst corporate jargon, and the woman trying to fight it: Ducks in a row, reinventing the wheel, putting a pin in it, circling back, low-hanging fruit and thinking outside the box are among this year’s most hated buzz phrases (AFR).

• How office workers are losing their social skills: Consultants say incidents of inappropriate workplace behaviour are becoming more common as increasing tech use erodes our people skills (AFR).

• Office distractions hinder workplace productivity: Workplace distractions have been found to be a key reason for the lower productivity of office workers, after research suggested well-supervised work-from-home employment increased productivity by as much as 28 per cent (AFR).

📑 Publications

Useful references, documents, and sources

• Accenture Life Trends 2025: A window into people's behaviors and attitudes to the world around them, including business, technology and societal shifts. This year, five emerging trends explore the cost of hesitations as people go after a healthier, more balanced relationship with technology—for themselves and for the next generation (Accenture).

• World’s Best Employers 2024: A survey of 300,000 employees in over 50 countries rate their company, giving the ranking of the best 850 companies in the world. Taking home the top 3 are Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Samsung Electronics (Forbes).

• Do recruiters truly understand the aspirations of the new generation of students? To attract and retain young graduates, recruiters need to understand their aspirations; this study compares what students and recent graduates want from their jobs with what recruiters think they want (The Conversation).

• ACS Digital Pulse 2024: The report identifies four areas and twelve actions to accelerate the growth of a highly skilled and diverse tech workforce. One equipped to capitalise on the opportunities of AI and provide the cybersecurity Australia needs (ACS).

📢 Opportunities

Limited-time career paths, educational scholarships, and professional growth opportunities that can shape your future

• Devpost: Join the world's best online and in-person hackathons. Multiple hackathons are listed here.

• Tech Council: Virtual Work Experiences for young learners to explore technology careers and jobs for free.

• Kaggle: Grow your data science skills by competing in exciting competitions. Multiple competitions are listed here.

• Career Diary: Find your passion. Join a community. Explore new hobbies. Multiple different opportunities are listed here.

• Hackathons.com.au: a curated list of upcoming hackathons and STEM challenges in Australia, New Zealand, and around the globe. Multiple hackathons and STEM challenges are listed here.

🗓️ Events

Online and In-Person events for progressing your career

• Build Club: A community of AI Engineers, researchers and builders pushing the frontier of AI forward. Join us and build your startup with a community who cares about AI. Multiple events are listed here.

• QPay: Discover university clubs, events, and merch. Multiple events are listed here.

• Sydney AI, Data and Tech Events: The hottest technology and AI events in Sydney! Multiple events are listed here.

• Melbourne AI, Data and Tech Events: The hottest technology and AI events in Melbourne! Multiple events are listed here.

• Your Application Toolkit: Polish a cover letter & resume for impact, & ace screening interviews: Master the art of job applications and secure your next opportunity with confidence (Sydney $Free).

🧠 Thought Leadership

Expertise, insight, opinions and experience in careers

• Why most managers are set up to fail: Employers underinvest in training managers and are often bad judges of who could make a good one. But there are signs things are starting to change (AFR).

• Why we should all learn to be OK with embarrassment: If we let fear of failing and ego get in the way, we will stop trying and stop moving forward, says this high-profile education leader (AFR).

• Myth of the job-hopping Millennial worker exposed: Despite headlines about the fickle Millennial and Gen Z employee, young people are switching jobs less than previous generations (AFR).

• Is Your Career Heading in the Right Direction?: It's easy to get caught up in the hustle and forget to reflect on your career path. A quarterly "career detox" can help. By pausing to introspect, identify your values, and align them with your work, you can ensure you're on the right track to career satisfaction (HBR).

🛠️ Featured Tool

One great career tool you need

The Harvard Assignment Game is a decision-making test that assesses your ability to manage scarce resources. It presents you with a complex numerical environment where you must make strategic choices to maximise your score. The game challenges your economic IQ and resource allocation skills, providing insights into your decision-making capabilities.

It only takes 5 minutes, so test your skills to see what it’s like to work as a manager to delegate tasks among your team.

🃏Quick Extra

A bonus from me

If you are interested in upskilling in AI, Google offers two great short courses that might be of interest:



1. Google AI Essentials: Learn how to use generative AI to help speed up daily tasks, make more informed decision (10 hours to complete)
.

2. Google Prompting Essentials (just released): Learn how to design prompts that work in 5 easy steps, and how AI can help you save time when tackling complex tasks, analyzing data, and summarizing information (9 hours to complete).

…and that’s all for this month’s edition of The Early Impact. Feel free to hit 'reply' and let me know how I did!

Cheers,

Noah

P.S. I post on LinkedIn biweekly about cybersecurity, emerging technology, careers, and learning & development.